1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a continuous heat balanced cyclic process for effecting conversion of methanol, dimethyl ether or mixtures thereof to light olefins utilizing a small pore crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite-containing catalyst.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 3,036,134 to Mattox discloses conversion of methanol to a reaction product containing water and dimethyl ether in the presence of a sodium or calcium crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite catalyst.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,033 to Frilette and Weisz discloses dehydration of a normal alkanol of three to six carbon atoms to an olefin, utilizing a sodium or calcium crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite catalyst having uniform interstitial demensions sufficiently large to admit the alkanol charge and to permit egress therefrom of the olefin product.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,062,905 to Chang et al. discloses a process for selectively converting methanol, dimethyl ether or mixtures thereof to C.sub.2 --C.sub.3 olefins utilizing small pore crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite catalysts.
It has been found, from a practical standpoint, that use of the latter catalysts requires the adoption of certain procedures and necessitates certain precautions such as frequent catalyst regeneration, immediate seperation of the reaction products from the catalyst to eliminate secondary reactions and avoidance of exposure of the catalyst to temperatures above 1400.degree. F. to prevent irreversible deactivation.